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Adolescent physical activity and inactivity: a prospective study of risk of benign breast disease in young women

  • Epidemiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

In previous investigations of adolescent activity recalled in adulthood, modest reductions in risk of benign breast disease (BBD) and premenopausal breast cancer were seen with moderate-strenuous activity during high school. We therefore investigated physical activity, walking, and recreational inactivity (watching TV-videos, playing computer-videogames) reported by adolescent girls in relation to their subsequent risk for BBD as young women. The Growing Up Today Study includes 9,039 females, 9–15 years at study initiation (1996), who completed questionnaires annually through 2001, then in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2013. Annual surveys (1996–2001) obtained data on physical and sedentary activities during the past year. Beginning in 2005, women (≥18 years) reported whether they had ever been diagnosed with BBD confirmed by breast biopsy (n = 133 cases, to 11/01/2013). Logistic regression (adjusted for baseline adiposity and age; additional factors in multivariable-adjusted models) estimated associations between adolescent activities (moderate-vigorous, walking, METS, inactivity) and biopsy-confirmed BBD in young women. Girls who walked the most had significantly lower risk of BBD (multivariable-adjusted OR = 0.61, ≥30 vs ≤15 min/day; p = .049). We observed no evidence that inactivity (≥3 vs <2 h/day OR = 1.02, p = .92) or METS (top vs bottom tertile OR = 1.19, p = .42) were associated with BBD. Accounting for factors including family history, childhood adiposity, and other activities and inactivities, adolescent girls who walked the most were at lower risk for BBD. We found no evidence that high moderate-vigorous activity might reduce risk, nor did we observe any association with inactivity. Continued follow-up will re-evaluate these findings as more BBD cases, and ultimately breast cancer, are diagnosed.

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Acknowledgments

Supported by a grant from The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (NYC, NY) and by DK046834 from the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD). Dr. Frazier was supported by an award from the American Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Colditz was supported, in part, by an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship. The authors appreciate the ongoing, since 1996, dedication of our female GUTS participants and their mothers in NHSII.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 181 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Catherine S. Berkey, Rulla M. Tamimi & Bernard Rosner

  2. Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Walter C. Willett

  3. Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    A. Lindsay Frazier

  4. Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Graham A. Colditz

Authors
  1. Catherine S. Berkey
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  2. Rulla M. Tamimi
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  3. Walter C. Willett
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  4. Bernard Rosner
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  5. A. Lindsay Frazier
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  6. Graham A. Colditz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Catherine S. Berkey.

Additional information

A. Lindsay Frazier and Graham A. Colditz co-senior authors.

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Berkey, C.S., Tamimi, R.M., Willett, W.C. et al. Adolescent physical activity and inactivity: a prospective study of risk of benign breast disease in young women. Breast Cancer Res Treat 146, 611–618 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-014-3055-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-014-3055-y

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